Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump, vowing multiple legal challenges to his prosecution for the violent January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and his attempt to stay in office after being defeated, asked a federal judge late Friday night to set a schedule that would keep the case going at least through January 2025…. Read More

Former President Donald Trump, conceding that he may be sent to prison in the midst of his election campaign, went to a federal court on Thursday night seeking to put off any sentencing for his 34 guilty verdicts in New York state court. In a 64-page filing by his legal defense team, Trump asked a… Read More

(NOTE: Post updated to include additional detail.) New York prosecutors chose on Monday to leave it to the trial judge in Donald Trump’s state criminal case to decide either to delay or to go ahead with imposing a sentence next month — a decision with significant political and legal meaning. The district attorney’s new filing,… Read More

UPDATE: This is an expended version of an earlier post.) Continuing to use his political candidacy as a legal shield, former President Donald Trump has asked a New York state court judge to delay until after the election a decision on his sentencing on 34 criminal convictions. In a letter Wednesday to Judge Juan M…. Read More

The nation’s largest legal organization, the American Bar Association, moved this week to use its influence to try to put into the U.S. Constitution a strong guarantee of equal rights for women. In a vote at the annual meeting in Chicago of the ABA’s policymaking arm, the House of Delegates, the lawyers’ group approved a… Read More

Moving briskly to re-open the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, a federal trial judge in Washington took steps on Saturday to move the case forward after a months-long delay. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ordered federal prosecutors and Trump’s defense lawyers to meet… Read More

Lawyers for Donald Trump, seeking even broader legal immunity than the Supreme Court has given, made a new maneuver this week to end the case that had resulted in his conviction of 34 crimes in New York state court. In a new brief made public Thursday, the former President’s legal team argued that his immunity… Read More

UPDATE: For those wishing to listen to or read President Franklin Roosevelt’s “fireside chat”on Court-packing, here is a link to the audio and the transcript, courtesy of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-9-1937-fireside-chat-9-court-packing Facing long odds against the idea, President Biden and Vice President Harris on Monday began an effort to restrict… Read More

None of Donald Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts need to be erased because of the new doctrine of presidential immunity, a team of prosecutors in New York argued in a new state court filing that has both legal and political significance.  This is the first effort in a lower court to test the effect of the… Read More

A Florida federal judge, giving Donald Trump a huge legal victory that might only be temporary, on Monday dismissed all 40 criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago case involving the former President’s handling of secret government documents. That is expected to set up a swift appeal to higher courts by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, whose appointment… Read More